PRACE aims to provide European researchers with access to supercomputing capacities at a world-class level, transgressing those affordable at the national level.Image courtesy of PRACE

Over 60 representatives from 14 European Countries participated in the kick-off meeting of the PRACE project at the Research Centre Jülich on 29 and 30 January 2008.

PRACE aims to lay the foundations for a future European supercomputer infrastructure and recently received a grant from the European Commission towards a total budget of 20 million Euro for the coming two years.

PRACE was established to create a persistent pan-European High Performance Computing service for research. In the preparatory phase, which will run until the end of 2009, the project will establish the basis of transnational organizational structure for scientific supercomputing in Europe.

By bringing together the know-how and resources of the partners, PRACE aims to provide European researchers with access to supercomputing capacities at a world-class level, transgressing those affordable at the national level.

This includes a coordinated approach to hardware procurement and potentially a European platform for the development of hardware and software jointly with industry. Close cooperation with national and regional computer centers and scientific organizations aims to ease access to computing resources at all levels for scientists and engineers from academia and industry.

“Science and industry need computing power of the highest quality—on the one hand, to conduct pioneering research, and on the other, to create innovations,” explained Achim Bachem, chairman of the board of directors at Research Centre Jülich and coordinator of the PRACE project. “Supercomputers have become an essential tool for all of the sciences,” said Bachem. “In the future, giant leaps in knowledge will only be possible with the help of complex simulations.”